Prominent local businesswoman Feeney dies

Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2001 | 9:31 a.m.

One would never have guessed that carbide- and colbalt-tipped drills, steel racks and custom band saw blades would be so much a part of Marie Feeney's life.

After all, she prided herself on being a proper Southern lady, who never left the house in anything but a tastefully color-coordinated ensemble. Still, she and her late husband, Edward, played a major role in the local hardware supply industry.

"Marie always stayed involved, whether it was with the family businesses, being a good hostess at parties or doing charity work," said longtime friend Peggy Welch. "Her life was devoted to her family."

Marie Dolbear Feeney, the matriarch of a longtime Las Vegas business family that co-founded E&M Industrial Hardware as a mom-and-pop operation in her home and oversaw its growth into a thriving statewide business, died New Year's Day from complications of old age. She was 90.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 37 years will be 10 a.m. Thursday at Guardian Angel Cathedral. Visitation will be 4-7 p.m. today at Palm Mortuary-Eastern.

"My mother was successful in business because she was a very warm person to whom many people were attracted," said Marie Feeney, her namesake, of Las Vegas. "My mother, father and brothers knew how to treat customers -- honestly and with courtesy. And they didn't charge an arm and a leg."

For more than a quarter of a century, the Feeneys also owned E&M Industrial Hose, Nevada Casters, Material & Handling Inc., and All Tool Repair. Marie served as bookkeeper for all of the firms that were sold by 1997.

E&M Industrial Hardware, founded in 1970, provided industrial hardware stock to major area businesses, including hardware stores, and sold storage supplies directly to major resorts and manufacturing firms from its Las Vegas and Reno offices.

Born Marie Estelle Dolbear on Feb. 5, 1910, in Mobile, Ala., she was the third eldest of six daughters of cigar manufacturer Edward Dolbear and the former Onelia DeBriere. Marie was raised in a strict Catholic household, where her family went to church every day before the children went to school.

As a youngster she learned to play the violin and later performed with a band in a park, escorting blind patrons to and from her concerts.

Marie graduated from Murphy High School in Mobile in 1929, and went to work for Waterman Steamship Co. as a bookkeeper, before moving to Los Angeles with two of her sisters in 1932. There she met hardware executive Edward Feeney, a neighbor. They started dating on St. Patrick's Day of that year and got married in December 1933. He died in 1988.

The Feeneys moved to Las Vegas in 1964, where he was hired as an executive for Southern Hardware. His major clients included the Bechtel Corp.

Six years later Ed, who saw a need for a local hardware supply company, quit his job and began his new business on a living room coffee table. He got his first order from then-Bechtel purchasing agent Jay Taylor, who asked for the business' name so he could fill out a purchase order.

"My father got off the phone and told my mother he had just named their company using the initials of their first names -- it was all spur of the moment," Marie said. "As the business grew, my mother told my father she could no longer live with boxes piled in the house, so she went out and rented the offices and a warehouse."

Over the years E&M sold 40,000 items, from tools and mops to huge steel storage racks. The company boasted it could produce power brake hoses in any size -- as well as all types of high-pressure hoses -- and make band saw blades to order.

Feeney was a member of the Clark County Women's Democratic Club, Guardian Angel Cathedral parish and the St. Jude's Women's Auxiliary.

In addition to her daughter, Feeney is survived by two sons, William Feeney of Dameron Valley, Utah, and James Feeney of Reno; four grandchildren, Alicia Pasqualotto and Brendan Feeney, both of Las Vegas, and Brian Feeney and Sean Feeney, both of Reno; and two great-grandchildren, Jillian Pasqualotto and Carley Pasqualotto, both of Las Vegas. She was preceded in death by her five sisters.

The family said donations can be made in Marie Feeney's memory to the Guardian Angel Cathedral, 302 Cathedral Way, Las Vegas, NV 89109 or Nathan Adelson Hospice, 4141 Swenson St., Las Vegas, NV 89119.